The People S Doctors

What moral and legal issues are involved in the physician-patient relationship? What is bioethics? What social and environmental factors are involved in health and disease? An interdisciplinary workshop of the Calgary Institute for the Humanities in May 1980 considered these issues, as well as health care delivery, the history of public health in Canada, conflicting "health cultures," and responsibilities of professionals on the health care team. Participating in the conference were prominent scholars and professionals in social edicine, community health, nursing, law, medical research, medical education, and various academic disciplines. They included Dr. Thomas McKeown, Dr. David Roy, Professor Hazel Weidman, Professor Benjamin Freedman, Dr. Anthony Lam, and Dr. Robert Hatfield.

The Doctor Dilemma provides a timely discussion of policy issues in five key areas of physician-related public policy in Ontario: physician payment schemes, regulation of physician numbers and distribution, monitoring of the quality of medical care, the role of physicians in hospitals, and the regulation of new medical technologies. Shortt defines the scope of the problems, clarifies the focus of the debate, identifies the constraints on policy formation, and discusses the policy options available. The author accepts the inevitability of substantial change to the health care system and the way practitioners work but believes that such change can ultimately lead to a better system of health care in Ontario. His aim is to persuade fellow doctors not to oppose change but rather to inform policy makers of what areas of physician activity legitimately demand intervention and how best to make changes. The Doctor Dilemma will be of tremendous interest to physicians and health care professionals, administrators, and policy makers across Canada.

The analyses in this book focus on the participation of the people within New Zealand’s system of government. The chapters provide a thorough examination of the government’s size, accessibility, structure, electoral system, and active committees in order to explain trends in the participation of sub-state actors, such as indigenous peoples and other minority groups.

Samuel Thomson, born in New Hampshire in 1769 to an illiterate farming family, had no formal education, but he learned the elements of botanical medicine from a "root doctor," who he met in his youth. Thomson sought to release patients from the harsh bleeding or purging regimens of regular physicians by offering inexpensive and gentle medicines from their own fields and gardens. He melded his followers into a militant corps of dedicated believers, using them to successfully lobby state legislatures to pass medical acts favorable to their cause. John S. Haller Jr. points out that Thomson began his studies by ministering to his own family. He started his professional career as an itinerant healer traveling a circuit among the small towns and villages of Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. Eventually, he transformed his medical practice into a successful business enterprise with agents selling several hundred thousand rights or franchises to his system. His popular New Guide to Health (1822) went through thirteen editions, including one in German, and countless thousands were reprinted without permission. Told here for the first time, Haller's history of Thomsonism recounts the division within this American medical sect in the last century. While many Thomsonians displayed a powerful, vested interest in anti-intellectualism, a growing number found respectability through the establishment of medical colleges and a certified profession of botanical doctors. The People's Doctors covers seventy years, from 1790, when Thomson began his practice on his own family, until 1860, when much of Thomson's medical domain had been captured by the more liberal Eclectics. Eighteen halftones illustrate this volume.

These are the stories of 365 women, men and children worldwide who have acted as peacemakers during the last 2500 years. They include human rights and antiwar activists, scientists and artists, educators and scholars, songwriters and poets, film directors and authors, diplomats and economists, environmentalists and mystics, prophets and policymakers. All sacrified for the dream of peace, some even died for it.

Covers issues from unnecessary surgeries and prescribed drugs to preventive medicine and home births.